The first major attack on Big Ag by New York Times reporter Michael Moss was in his book, "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" (see Ag Perspectives on 21 February 2013). More recently revealing his lack of understanding of agricultural economics, he contacted an advertising agency to find out how to get people to eat more broccoli. While arguing the "deck is stacked against produce farmers" by commodity subsidies and checkoffs that fund the marketing of unhealthy foods, he nonetheless hopes that simply out marketing Big Ag can remake the American diet, though he admits his plan is debatable.Presumably, disseminating information about broccoli's super healthfulness has had some positive effect. According to USDA's Economic Resea...
What You Need to Know Today: Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans continued to accelerate, with USDA reporting another 558 KMT sold to China and 236 KMT to unknown destinations. Combined with sales announced Wednesday and Thursday, the latest purchases bring the three-day total to approximately...
Key Takeaways: With the fall calf run now upon us, producers are finally getting a glimpse of what their realized profits will be for 2026. Some producers may have already obtained a strong estimate of 2026 revenues, especially if calves were forward sold in, for example, the mid-summer...
As fall begins, wild migratory birds are starting their seasonal migration. That has the industry and government officials worried about the potential spread, again, of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Some members of Congress have called for the United States to be prepared for a pote...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.